Generally, a vehicle seat is generally fixed to a vehicle in such a way that a striker is engaged with a lock mechanism, the striker being provided at one of the vehicle seat and the vehicle and the lock mechanism being provided at the other of the vehicle seat and the vehicle.
According to a lock apparatus disclosed in JP2006-248330A, as illustrated in FIG. 8 in the publication, the vehicle seat is fixed in such a way that a striker, provided at the vehicle, enters a striker insertion opening, formed at a base plate that is a component of a seat lock assembly provided at the side of the seat, and in this configuration the striker is held by a striker engagement opening of the latch. Because of the dimensional misalignment of each component of the seat lock assembly, an assembly position of the striker and an assembly position of the seat lock assembly may vary. Such misalignment may be offset in such a way that the latch is rotated in a direction where the striker is pressed to a bottom surface of the striker insertion opening by means of a lock guiding surface having an inclined surface at 6 degree formed at a plate and being normally biased by a spring in an anticlockwise direction.
According to the lock apparatus disclosed in JP2006-248330A, the plate is provided in order to offset the misalignment of the assembly position of each component, however, the number of parts may be increased because of such additional component, which leads to cost increase. Further, increase of the number of parts may cause further misalignment, accordingly the assembly positions of the striker and the seat lock assembly may further vary, and such misalignments may not be offset only by means of the plate.
A need thus exists for a lock apparatus for a vehicle seat, which is not susceptible to the drawback mentioned above.